1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to a sanitary extruder hood. In more detail, embodiments of the present invention are directed to an extruder hood for a pneumatic conveyance system, with the extruder hood configured to provide sanitary airflow across an extruder discharge zone such that material can be extruded and conveyed in a sanitary and efficient manner.
2. Description of the Related Art
An extruder is a machine used in many industries for creating various products from raw material. In general, an extruder machine utilizes heat and pressure to change the nature, shape, and/or condition of a material so as to produce a finalized product. For instance, in the human and pet food industries, wetted food materials can be extruded to create food products. The wetted food materials may be extruded through dies to form food products having various sizes, shapes, and/or cross-sections.
Extruder machines can be associated with a spinning knife that cuts and ejects the newly-formed food products from the extruder machine. In certain instances, an extruder hood can be positioned around a discharge of the extruder machine so as to receive the extruded food products. Some extruder hoods can be associated with pneumatic systems, which use air to pneumatically remove the extruded food products and to transport the products for further processing, such as drying. In previously-used extruder hoods, the extruder hoods were configured to draw in ambient air and to use the ambient air to remove the extruded food products from the extruder. However, ambient air is often contaminated with particulates and biologicals that are undesirable in the food products. For example, biological contaminants at naturally occurring levels in the ambient air can enter the moist warm food-products, thereby finding a hospitable environment for reproduction and further growth. In addition, many previously-used extruder hoods used a clamshell design, in which the extruder hood was split vertically or horizontally. Such clamshell designs introduced complexities that increased costs and that created difficulties when using and maintaining the extruder hoods and when connecting the extruder hoods with extruder machines.